Iraq moves to build unified database for public servants

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's Federal Public Service Council is preparing the country's first unified "sovereign database" covering all state employees, council head Murtadha al-Qazwini said. He noted that no consolidated civil service database currently exists, with employee records scattered across ministries and agencies, leaving the exact number of public servants unclear at roughly 4.609 million. The new system is designed to link biometric data with personnel and financial records, enabling authorities to identify fictitious employees, those drawing double salaries and workers who have exceeded the legal retirement age, al-Qazwini said. The council has signed cooperation agreements with Moscow University, the government of Dubai, Egypt's Arab Organization, Jordan, the Oman Gulf College and the Civil Service Department to support the project. Al-Qazwini described the main obstacles as the lack of a suitable center, infrastructure, servers and budget allocations. He also said the council was restructured after 2019, while some offices from its predecessor body, abolished in 1979, still operate within the relevant ministries. Separately, the council introduced new appointment rules requiring candidates to submit their own applications, with appointments and salaries to be cancelled if the appointee fails to report for duty within ten days. No timeline for the database's launch was given.